Google CEO Confirms Work on Online Payment Service

The company plans to expand its role in e-commerce, but it is not looking to create a PayPal-like service, Google CEO Eric Schmidt says.

Googles top executive confirmed on Tuesday that the company is planning to expand into broader online payment services but said it will not compete with a PayPal-like service.
In a company-issued statement, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company does not plan to offer what he called a "person-to-person stored-value payments system."
One of the main features of PayPal, a division of eBay Inc., is the ability for consumers to store balances in order to make e-commerce payments.

Following a story by the Wall Street Journal published on Friday, speculation ran rampant about Google offering a PayPal competitor.

Instead, Schmidt said that Google is looking to expand its current online payment services, which is largely used to handle payments from advertisers and to Web publishers in Googles popular online advertising programs.
Schmidt stopped short of offering details about Googles next online payment plans or when the Mountain View, Calif., company will introduce a broader service.
"The payment services we are working on are a natural evolution of Googles existing online products and advertising programs, which today connect millions of consumers and advertisers," Schmidt said in the statement. "We are building products in the area to solve new problems in e-commerce."
Click here to read more about why a Google "Wallet" would make sense.
Google earlier this year disclosed plans to handle more e-commerce transactions, specifically for its video-search service.
When Google launched its video submission program in April, Jennifer Feikin, director of Google Video, told Ziff Davis Internet News that that the company would let content owners charge a fee for video playback on Google. Google would then earn a small revenue share from video playback fees.
Google also has moved into digitizing books and other print content through its Google Print program. Though officials have not said whether Google will offer paid access to those copyrighted works, it could be another area ripe for online payments.
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As an online reporter for eWEEK.com, Matt Hicks covers the fast-changing developments in Internet technologies. His coverage includes the growing field of Web conferencing software and services. With eight years as a business and technology journalist, Matt has gained insight into the market strategies of IT vendors as well as the needs of enterprise IT managers. He joined Ziff Davis in 1999 as a staff writer for the former Strategies section of eWEEK, where he wrote in-depth features about corporate strategies for e-business and enterprise software. In 2002, he moved to the News department at the magazine as a senior writer specializing in coverage of database software and enterprise networking. Later that year Matt started a yearlong fellowship in Washington, DC, after being awarded an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship for Journalist. As a fellow, he spent nine months working on policy issues, including technology policy, in for a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He rejoined Ziff Davis in August 2003 as a reporter dedicated to online coverage for eWEEK.com. Along with Web conferencing, he follows search engines, Web browsers, speech technology and the Internet domain-naming system.